For all of you who don't know, my name is Simone and I come from Italy.
I am a simple person: I love languages, music, books (especially the ones not talking about our world, which I consider ugly and depressing) and horseriding.
I am the kind of person who likes to go hiking in the mountains and to linger in the woods.
This side of me (as the other main side would be sitting at home reading a book or studying a new interesting language) was very developed when I was 12.

At that age I lived in a lavish house with my parents.
It was one of the hundreds of houses of a small town in Veneto.
The great thing of this town was that it stood (and still stands) at the foot of one of the Venetian Prealps, a large mountain called Summano.
Summano was beautiful, especially in autumn, when its arboreal mantle became multicolored.
At the base of its bulk you could see two hills: Sogno and Angelo.
I used to take walks through the woods of Angelo very often, and even more often I and my parents climbed to the top of it, where you could find a little church.
We usually stopped by the church, took a little break and then we moved on again to get to the top of Summano.

It all began one day of late spring, I think it was in June 2002.
I and my parents were climbing down Angelo and they were tired.
But I wasn’t, my pace was still sprightly and I wanted to explore the woods around us.
About halfway down the hiking trail we were walking on to get back home there is a large meadow: it borders on the trail and at the very bottom of it there are very dense deciduous woods.
We were still far from the meadow and my parents were proceeding at a very slow pace.
So I asked: “Can I go down to the meadow and wait for you there? You could come down the hill at your pace and I could explore the woods around it in the meantime”.
Yes, guys, that’s how I used to be.
Anyway, they knew I liked that meadow and that I’d been toying for a long time with the idea of going there again and finding out what was beyond it, so they said yes.
Happy as a clam, I ran down the slope of the hill and, in two minutes, I reached the desired destination.
The sun shone high in the sky when I crossed the meadow and approached the tree-covered area I had in mind to penetrate.
The birches and the lindens in front of me were so tall! Or maybe it was just me that, being a child, saw everything more “towering” than it actually was.
But anyway, I happened to be rather impressed by them, especially because the shadows between them were deep and I suspected that a place like that might be a refuge for wildlife.
Indeed, while I was trying to locate the easiest way to enter that wood, I thought back to what my father had once told me: some people had said they had spotted wolves on the slopes of Summano.
Could they have come down as far as the foothills?Unlikely, I thought. Still, it doesn’t look like a place where people go for a stroll.
And yet in spite of this last thought (which I actually remember having had), a few moments later I glimpsed a very little path disappearing in the trees on my right.
I hadn’t noticed it before because the trailhead was very much overshadowed by the greenery, as if it were itself part of the wood.
You might well imagine how excited I was when I finally ventured beyond the edge of the meadow, thanks to that almost invisible path.
I was now walking slowly in a mysterious half-light: the foliage was so dense that I could barely guess the position of the sun.
I remember descrying the linden seeds gently floating to the ground, sometimes.
And I remember I stopped many times, as the underbrush almost swallowed up the little trail and I had been taught to be afraid of snakes.
So I went on, and on, and on, until I reached a point where the path curved, disappearing behind a little slope covered with blue flowers.
And I was so busy staring at the flowers that I didn’t initially notice the woman who was looking at me!
My heart just skipped a beat!What’s she doing here? was the first thought that went through my mind.
Then I observed her better… and my heart started skipping many beats: she wasn’t exactly dressed like a normal person.
She wore trousers and a light long-sleeved shirt, but her clothes were made of some sort of silky tissue which I’d never seen before: its color looked greenish blue.
She herself didn’t exactly look like a normal person: her long dark hair framed an astoundingly beautiful face, too perfect and spotless to be a human being’s face.
She had the skin of a child, but she was clearly way older than me.
And her eyes… well, they were maybe what, most of all, made the beauty of her face nearly unendurable.
I couldn’t look at them for more than a couple of seconds, so I just noticed that they were very soulful, crystal clear and in the shape of almonds (even though not slanted at all).
I realized that she was heading in the direction opposite to that which I had taken and that she was slowly coming towards me.She might be a gipsy woman, I remember thinking.
I had stopped, almost unwittingly, and I was trying to figure out what was happening.
There was definitely something strange in the way she seemed to look at me: a maternal way, as if she knew me somehow.
She spoke a couple of words, but my head had stopped rationally thinking and I didn’t catch them.
She was now standing right in front of me.She’s probably trying to hypnotize me, maybe she wants my wallet! I thought stupidly.
She stretched out her arm slowly and it looked like she wanted to touch my shoulder.
At this point I turned around and started running.
I ran and ran.
I was half-expecting to hear a voice cry: “Hey! Give me your wallet!”
And instead, when I dared to look back, I saw no one behind me.
I was now in the middle of the meadow.
The sun made the stalks of grass shine like gold.
I didn’t know what to think.
I stopped for a while and then I decided to reach my parents (who hadn’t arrived at the meadow yet).
“Back already?” said my mother when she saw me.
“I met…” I started to say.
But then I realized I didn’t know who (or what!) I had just met.
I fell silent, and they never knew about my strange encounter.

That night I dreamt of the strange woman.
It seemed like she was talking to me, but I couldn’t understand the words she spoke.

The next morning - I seem to remember it was Sunday - I woke up with a strange feeling.
I was still thinking about that encounter: the person I’d met was so peculiar, so ethereal compared to the people I’d gotten used to meeting.
I locked myself in my room and I tried to draw her face: I was good at drawing at that age.
Shortly afterwards, I took another piece of paper and I started to write down: Yesterday I met a very strange woman in the woods of Angelo. She was… and so on and so forth.
I spent my afternoon in my room, sitting at my little desk (because, yes, I had one, even at that age), writing nonsensical words on a little organizer that my mother had given to me.
It wasn’t the first time I did it.
You have to know that, since I was only 6, I used to sing those that my mother called “my songs”.
She has always assumed that they were invented songs, because the lyrics were, well, weird.
I didn’t sing in any known language, people around me often said I sang “in gibberish”.
Deep down inside, though, I knew that I hadn’t just invented those songs: I was trying to remember.
There had always been strange echoes in my mind, ever since I was born.
Echoes of beautiful voices, talking, laughing, singing.
I’d never heard such sweet voices in my life, I’d never heard such songs, so I came to a simple conclusion: I was having memories from another life.
Maybe a previous life.
Trying to sing those songs, even if I didn’t know the meaning (nor, often, the precise form) of the words, was my way of keeping those memories alive.
And I wanted to keep them alive because I felt that they were important, somehow.
And so I sang and I had even begun to write down lists of isolated words taken from those songs.
Words such as elumar, liria, aiwe…
I ascribed a meaning to some of them, often: for example, aiwe meant “marvel” in my mind.
I wasn’t sure about the meaning I gave to each word, but I often let myself be “guided” by my feelings in order to find it.
Soon enough, I discovered I no longer needed the songs in order to find new words: they just came to my mind, without the need to search for them anywhere.
And so the lists grew longer, and longer, and longer.
Until, one day, a thrilling thought made its way into my head: my name in this language is Mildir. And it should mean “Man-of-study”.
I didn’t even know what that language was, but I kept writing, it was almost “automatic”.
And that was precisely what I was doing on that distant afternoon of late spring: writing down new words, without even knowing what they meant.
I thought they just had to mean something and I thought I’d heard them somewhere: I just couldn’t figure out where.
Problem was, I wasn’t doing my homework, and by the time I realized it, darkness had fallen.
I had to go to dinner… and I had to go to bed (there was no time to do anything after dinner, because usually we had guests).
“You’ve done your homework?” asked my mother.
“Yeees” I said, as usual.
And, as usual, I thought: well, technically it’s no lie, since I’ve done work and I was home.

(To be continued)

Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil. (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Note: you have to know one more thing. Since I was 6 my parents and many people around me have been telling me that I had “grown-up thoughts” and a “grown-up way of speaking”.
This has nothing to do with me thinking about my wallet (at the age of 12 I had a baby wallet and I kept it at home most of the time), but it may surface at some point in this sort of report I’m doing.

Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil. (J.R.R. Tolkien)

This is the little church on the top of Angelo (the hill), you can see the base of Summano in the background:

This is the hiking trail I and my parents were walking on to get back home:

And, finally, this is the famous meadow (with a view of the wood in which I chanced upon Lada):

(The picture was taken many years after I met her)

Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil. (J.R.R. Tolkien)

So, that night I went to bed without having done my homework and that caused me enormous anxiety.
To tell the truth, I was desperate.
It wasn’t the first time it happened, and this time - I seem to remember - there was even going to be an oral exam.
I should have studied for it, but I didn’t.
I couldn’t sleep, I kept thinking things like “The quiet days of my life are over” or “It’s all over. I will no longer have time to discover these things I have inside. Every time I try to do it, it takes time. And every time life says that there’s no time for this, that there’s no room. There is only room for duty. A duty which will never help me find out more about my past”.
I know that it sounds a bit overdramatic, but that is what I thought.
Those memories made me feel alive, I often associated them with the concept of “life”.
As a consequence, I thought that the world was killing me.
This I remember very well.
I fell asleep with these thoughts in my mind.

I awakened shortly after.
The first thing I noticed was that anxiety was gone.
Totally gone.
I wondered how it was possible.
The second thing I noticed was that the light behind the curtain of my window was strange: there was a light blue gleam in it.
And it was very bright at the same time: a soft but not at all dim gleam, which gave me a deep feeling of peace.
And that feeling made me fall asleep again.

It wasn’t long before I woke up again.
I opened my eyes… and closed them as quickly as possible: my heart was pounding out of my chest!
What I had just seen… couldn’t simply be!
I opened my eyes for the second time… and for the second time I hastened to close them.
She was looking at me.
The very same woman I’d met in the woods.What’s happening to me? I thought.
Whatever was happening, I needed to face it and so I decided to open my eyes and to make every possible effort to keep them open.
She smiled at me!
She was there, as real as the night.
Her long dark hair, her crystal clear eyes… everything!
She seemed to be crouched at the foot of my bed.
“Who… who are you?” I asked.
In that instant I noticed again the strange and beautiful light seeping through the curtain of my window, behind the woman.
And then something incredible happened.
“Aiya, Mildo, andalúmello ranna meldo! Enyë Nilwen” she said.
This is the complete sentence as she would report it to me afterwards.
She would also tell me what it meant: “Hello, Mildir, long lost friend! I am Nilwen”
But right then I only understood “Aiya, Mildo” and “Enyë Nilwen”.
She was talking to me in the language of my memories!
A language that I believed no one could know but myself!
That was absolutely stunning, for me, as it was the fact that I had understood part of what she had said.
I was still there, lying in my bed, petrified by what my eyes were seeing.
“Who are you?” I asked stupidly for the second time.
“Nilwen i essenya” she replied.
This time I got the whole sentence and it took to me just one second to realize that it meant “My name is Nilwen”.
At this point I tried to sit up, to see what was really going on in my room… and my heart almost stopped!
Nilwen wasn’t the only one looking at me!
Three individuals, besides her, were crouched at the foot of my bed!
One was next to her - at my left - and another two were at my right!
I immediately hastened to turn on my bedside lamp, but Nilwen was faster: she grasped my hands and she kept them in hers.
She told me something like “A vá caries, neranyel! Ú monya furyallë! Meldellar elmë! Paltyuvanyë len ilma! Utúlielmë le conien!”.
“Please, don’t do it! You needn’t be afraid! We are friends of yours! I will explain you everything! We have come to fetch you!”
It took time for me to calm down, but when I did each one of them introduced themselves to me.
“Aiya, Mildo. Iverinwen i essenya. Nentya menë le quitië, nan ye tarë yan anistallë monya” said the woman at my right.
She looked exactly like Nilwen: elvish, otherworldly.
Her traits were more delicate, very dainty, and her cheekbones were higher.
Her words (which might not be the exact words she spoke) meant: “Hello, Mildir. My name is Ivrenwen. We are very sorry to wake you up, but there is something you need to know”
Then the man next to Ivrenwen spoke.
He had long silvery-white hair and beautiful serene eyes.
He said: “Arpindë i essenya. A vá rulië, Mildo. Ilta ñumë lá carië len inyalmë”
Which means: “My name is Arphin. Don’t be worried, Mildir. We don’t want to do you any harm”
The last person to speak was the man next to Nilwen: he had long dark hair and a determined look in his eyes.
He simply said: “Mildo, enyë Torion”
They had all spoken in the language of my memories, which - as I’d be told later on - they called Quenya.
And so they had used their Quenya names: Nilwen, Iverinwen, Arpindë and Torion.
Little did I know that most of our future conversations would be in another language, called Mithren, and that I’d soon get used to calling them by their Mithren names: Nilwen, Ivrenwen, Arphin and Torion.
Moreover, they had all called me Mildo.
I’d learn only afterwards that this is my Quenya name, whereas Mildir is Mithren.
The difference between Quenya and Mithren wasn’t at all clear to me, at that time.
To get back to what was happening that night: I was enchanted, dazed by their aspect and by their voices.
The words of each one of them were so - I couldn’t find another adjective for them - sweet.
Kind, if you prefer, but in a way which I’d never observed before in any man.
I finally succeeded in sitting up, after various failed attempts.
I looked at each one of them: they were far more elvish than any elvish thing that men have ever depicted and - I suspect - imagined.
“Who are you?” I asked for the third time, addressing everyone of them.
Nilwen’s smile grew wider.
She reached out for me, exactly like she had done two days earlier in the woods… and she drew me into her arms!
I think she held me tighter than anyone before then for one entire minute.
When we drew apart she looked extremely happy.
She told me: “Eldar elmë, Mildo. Eldar ar meldellar elmë. Utúlielmë le conien. A Mildo, covyallë ya len quetyan?”
Which means: “We are Eldar, Mildir. We are Eldar and friends of yours. We’ve come to fetch you. Mildir, do you understand what I’m saying?”
And then, for the first time, I tried to speak in the language of my memories.
“Covyanyë”, I stuttered. “Covyanyë nan… penya. Quenyanyë penya…” (“I understand. I understand but… little. I speak little”)
They all joyfully laughed and Ivrenwen (I think) said: “Ú inga. Anistyuvallë linto” (“It doesn’t matter. You will soon learn”)

(To be continued)

Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil. (J.R.R. Tolkien)